Afternoon music
Battles past
From the newspapers
https://www.countytimes.co.uk/news/23651950.herefordshire-farmer-damaged-river-lugg-prison/
That horrible greedy farmer who badly damaged the River Lugg a couple of years ago has been released from prison, having served only 2-3 months of an already-lenient 10-month sentence.
A good example of how weak the justice system now is. Some flexibility is good, but when convicts are only serving a quarter of a prison sentence, and when that sentence is often inadequate to start with, the system itself starts to break down, as does society.
Tweets seen
Piers Corbyn, one of the great British eccentrics, the kind applauded by G.K. Chesterton in some of his Father Brown stories.
“Legal tender” is legal tender, but you can see the way the UK is going: “app only” purchasing, “15 minute ghettoes cities”, “social credit”, etc. Dystopian Britain. It’s happening, gradually, all around us, right in front of us.
Part of that is the fake “communitarianism” tested out during the “Covid” “scamdemic”/”panicdemic”, e.g. the “caring sharing” NHS which leaves millions to suffer and die; also the “emergency services” (police, ambulance, fire brigade) in general, which used to respond within minutes, maybe 5, 10, 15 minutes, but now (at least the first two) sometimes take hours to arrive or, more commonly, just refuse to attend at all, referring callers either to a website, or to some bloody “app”, or to often-useless advice lines.
Krivoy Rog, Ukraine.
Ha ha. Good news for peace in Europe.
There seems to be only one solution for the Afghan[istan] problem, meaning to delete and start anew, from tabula rasa. The British, Russians, Americans and British (again) failed in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. The Soviet Union was winning from 1979, but the Americans stupidly created a monster by funnelling arms and ammunition to the savage tribesmen and fanatics such as Osama bin Laden. When it comes to the USA, it seems that its ignorant leaders never learn.
The same is true for armchair warrior Tobias Ellwood.
That may be right about heat pumps, or some heat pumps, I do not know, but one thing I am sure of is that Reform UK has no chance, politically. Recent by-elections have made that clear.
I do not think that the tide of affairs is moving toward “libertarian” “conservatism”. The people want clean efficient government, in fact quite a few want (unconsciously) a less “Germanic” form of national socialism, or even national near-“communism”, as problems abound with cost of living, housing, crime, migration-invasion, huge inequality etc.
Real timeline: promote electric cars, gradually get rid of all non-electric cars, then make electric cars even less affordable than they now are, then force 90% of the public onto public transport and/or into “15-minute ghettoes cities”.
Dystopian slave society upcoming.
…and many of the “sheeple” will applaud their own enslavement.
20,000 killed and wounded in a month. How long can the Kiev regime sustain such losses out of a declining population (low birth rate, and many women and teenagers leaving for other countries)?
Late tweets
Late music
One of the great American symphonies.
Ian Robert Millard 
You will never be able to civilise Afghans. They are amongst the most backward peoples on the planet and on a par with Somalians. Merkel stupidly allowed many to settle in Germany and, in return, quite a few of them thought gang raping young German women was appropriate behaviour eg in Cologne on New Year’s Eve.
Afghanistan should be left alone by the West generally-speaking. The only real excuse to invade would be to try and curtail their production of heroin which too often finds its way onto British and European streets with calamitous results for some people’s health and as a significant factor in producing higher crime rates.
I think the Taliban has destroyed a large part of their heroin production so we have to be thankful to them for that.
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John:
What if the Afghans were replaced, entirely, by some other group?
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I am not in favour of replacing Afghans. I am in favour of racial and cultural diversity ON A WORLD SCALE.
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Hear! Hear! What a good idea! 🤣 🤣 🤣
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De Stantis might make for a good President. I mostly approve of how he has been governing Florida. One thing he has done recently I am wary of is that he has reduced the number of jurors that have to agree to sentence someone to death from unanimity to just eight out of 12. Whilst I agree with him that it should be lowered and a single juror should not be able to veto a death sentence lowering it to eight is too low. The figure should be ten out of 12 as this removes the possibility of just one juror having a veto but still provides for a safeguard.
His actions in this regard might not be lawful though and the US supreme court might have to intervene and stop his new law.
Florida is where ‘Woke Goes to Die’ under Governor De Stantis.
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I see that the unelected cretin that is the extra from A Passage To India has taken it upon himself to grant hundreds of licences for new oil and gas facilities.
Someone needs to tell this Grade A arrogant prick that the excess burning of fossil fuels is a major component of mostly man made global warming and it needs to be discouraged NOT encouraged.
How in the hell can we hope to persuade countries like China to play their part in averting future dangerous rises in the Earth’s temperature when we set this appalling example?
If he had a brain he would listen to far more sensible people in his party like one of Britain’s best ever Environment Secretaries (certainly he can be counted amongst the best Tory ones) John Selwyn Gummer/Lord Deden.
The Conservative Party already has appalling support levels amongst young people and this was worsened because of Brexit and now this!
It is time he was got rid of. He has had eight months already to turn the poll figures around and achieved ZILCH in that regard and it looks very far from changing.
Do the Tories want to lose support to the Greens? That party has been picking-up quite a few gains in what should be staunchly Tory areas like Suffolk. They now run their first council there and I can’t see how it could have happened without a significant number of normally Tory voters voting Green.
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John:
Britain needs energy security. I also favour getting oil and gas from Russia (again). If the UK were less tied-up with the USA, such hydrocarbons would be supplied very cheaply to us.
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Of course, we need energy security but that can be accomplished in an environmentally sustainable way as well at the same time. We can make our homes more energy efficient so reducing our energy needs as a country and helping with the cost of living crisis. The Green Party has policies designed to achieve that.
I am not a fan of the ‘Watermelon Party’ but at least they do have a concern for the environment which the Conservative Party is increasingly under the malign influence of imposed and unelected libertarian extremists like Rishi doesn’t have.
This country could do with a Green-Conservative Party ie one that regards the environment and climate change issue seriously but dispenses with the PC globalist baggage of the Green Party.
Maybe, in time, the Climate Party might fit the bill?
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I certainly agree this country should distance itself from the USA instead of following it around like a demented lost puppy. It is high time we had an INDEPENDENT British foreign policy as otherwise we may as well rejoin the EU and follow a EU foreign policy line.
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What an ignorant prick, Adam Brooks is. I recall this utterly immoral libertarian extremist wanker was also in favour of removing Boris Idiot’s overly soft Covid 19 restrictions which were not even enforced for the most part.
If only immoral libertarian extremist wankers like him just died or emigrated to ruin other countries. Britain could be a decent country to live in if wankers like him died or emigrated.
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It isn’t surprising there is such a close correlation of belief between libertarian extremist wankers like Adam Brooks and Bernie Tweets and those who opposed restrictions during the pandemic and climate change deniers.
They tend to be the same sort of people. Well, at its root, libertarianism is an immoral and innately selfish philosophy so why wouldn’t these people want to live for the present and deny future generations of a decent planet with a livable climate?
Perhaps that js why Fishi mass murdering Rishi flies about jn his ‘look at me, poor plebs’ helicopter instead of taking more environmentally sustainable transport?
Libertarian extremists ARE selfish, degenerate arseholes and Fishi Rishi certainly firs that bill as he has proven, once again, today.
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Electric cars do have some environmental costs to produce ie the rare materials such as lithium in their batteries but with more and more advances being made in battery technology reducing the need to use lithium ect they are the wave of the future as are electric vans, lorries and, eventually, electric passenger aircraft.
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Electric cars are presently more expensive, on average, than petrol cars are which is mainly due to the battery packs they require. Literally many, many billions of pounds are being spent to advance battery technology which is now beginning to pay off. Cheaper batteries with longer range, greater safety ie solid state ones, less recharging times are going to be available soon and they will also be cheaper to make therefore the cost of these electric cars will fall.
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What is so inherently wrong with Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTN) by the way? In London, the Met asked for some councils to restore them or not do away with them in the first place since they were helping reduce crime levels in these areas.
Perhaps, someone should set-up not just a Green-Conservative Party but a new one called ‘The Party for Law and Order’ since the self-proclaimed one is not doing a great job in that regard and is against some measures which have helped to reduce crime.
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John:
Obviously, if you lock up the inhabitants of a city in separate neighbourhoods, make it difficult to move around by car, require electronic cards or, in the future, under-the-skin chips, in order to access various neighbourhoods, crime will fall. The question is “at what price?”…
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Well, if one day in the future technology becomes available ie implantable microchips in the human body that helps to lower crime in general and violent crimes such as the murders and mass stabbings London suffers in particular then we should give it a try out.
It might well have an element of that famous scene in A Clockwork Orange and infringe civil liberties but it would make for a less crime ridden future and crime, particularly violent crime, comes at great cost to society in increased misery levels to relatives of victims etc.
Singapore could replace its fairly frequent use of capital punishment (they hanged two drug dealers last week) if that technology becomes available.
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Global warming or, as the UN Secretary General has recently renamed it, global boiling, is helping to ensure that crops fail in various parts of the planet ie in Africa causing starvation thus making their people attempt to move to Europe.
‘Fortress Europa’ and an avoidance of the ‘Camp of the Saints’ scenario as foretold by French author, Jean Raspail, is going to be very much harder to achieve if we ignore the effects of global warming/boiling. This shows why nationalists in Europe should steer clear of aligning themselves with climate change deniers/delayers.
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I am inclined to believe the statistics supplied by the Russian MOD. I cannot believe this f… war is still going on with the Ukranian army reduced to a tiny fraction of experienced soldiers!
The Ukranian generals must be a bunch of corrupt degenerates in the pockets of Zelensky, otherwise, there is no other explanation how this f… psychopath is still in power.
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Claudius:
Indeed. Still, the inexperienced recruit who survives the kind of battles taking place will soon become an experienced soldier. *If* he survives, that is.
Still, of course you are correct. I note the press-gangs now forcing people off the streets and into uniform in Ukraine; and, as far as I know, the flow of foreign volunteers has all but stopped. The Kiev regime *must* be running out of recruits, let alone trained soldiers.
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Re Legal Tender. When i was a boy and my mother’s relatives in Scotland would send me birthday money, most of the Indian shopkeepers round here would refuse to accept the Scottish banknotes.
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EnglishBrit89:
I once had difficulty getting rid of some Scottish money (no idea where it came from— I have never been to Scotland) in London. Think I had to pay it into my bank in the end.
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Hello EnglishBrit89! I have to say I was shocked when I read your comment. I assumed that since the Act of Union in 1707 (I believe…) English/British pounds were the only legal tender.
Therefore, I have two questions for you: A) When did the Scottish money start to circulate? B) Is still in use? Although I read a lot British history I do not remember ever reading or hearing about Scottish bank notes.
Regards from “a bloody foreigner” (LOL)
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Claudius:
In the absence, so far, of a reply to your question, probably because of the time difference:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banknotes_of_Scotland
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Hello and thank you for the article about the Scottish banknotes. What an idiotic idea! The article states clearly that “they are NOT legal tender anywhere in the UK”.
I bet this stupid idea was brought about by the SNP, a bunch of idiots who hate/resent the English people and have delusions of grandeur. How humiliating must be to have to exchange your ridiculous Scottish bank notes before going to England since there is no guarantee that they will be accepted.
I just visited a website where English and Scots argue about the situation and is really confusing, mainly because the idiots in charge in England and Scotland have not made a law that clearly defines what is a legal tender and what is not. As incredible as it may seem, and as far as I understood, English shopkeepers are entitled to refuse to accept Scottish bank notes; and because there is no clear-cut law about this no Scotsman can be sure if his money would be accepted south of the border.
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Claudius:
It is a silly situation, but it apparently dates from the 18thC, so nothing to do with the SNP, which was only founded in the early 1930s.
Scotland was of course independent until 1707, though ruled during much of the 17th century and the early 18thC by the same royal house (Stuarts) as was England, and by the same monarchs (eg Queen Anne).
As you may or may not know, Scottish law differs from English in a number of respects. Property law is rather different, esp. as regards real property (land and houses etc). Criminal law also differs much. A different court structure, 15 jurors instead of 12 deciding serious criminal cases and, famously, a third potential verdict in any criminal case— “Not Proven”, as well as the more familiar “Guilty” and “Not Guilty”.
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Hello Claudius. Sorry i didn’t actually even know this, i had to look it up. It says Scottish banknotes are not legal tender anywhere, even in Scotland. First issued in 1727. I literally had to google it, so it isn’t really me answering your question lol. I had no idea Scottish notes were not actually legal tender. You learn something new every day.
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Yes, the Reform Party has no chance electorally-speaking. In general, this country is sick to death of libertarian idiocy. Mrs Thatcher was a libertarian/market forces fundamentalist but even she had the good sense not to take it too far on most occasions ie she didn’t privatise the Royal Mail or British Rail and she combined her market fundamentalist/economic liberalism with a decent amount of social conservatism eg Section 28, making a half-decent stab at immigration control, supporting the police, expanding their numbers and getting the courts to treat criminals more harshly.
She knew economic liberalism on its own would be a very tough sell and working-class voters would be repelled by it so she sought to sweeten it with a fair amount of social conservatism as well.
Libertarianism is a weird political philosophy that has very few good points. It has a obsession with the size of the state and thinks the state can only do harm. That isn’t true at all. The state can be a force for good as well as evil.
The size of the state is immaterial. What matters is GOOD government and that can involve large or small government
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A most beautiful country house is for sale at the ridiculous price of £75.000.000. As much as admire its beauty and the impeccable restoration its owner carried out over the 22 years of his ownership the price is obscene.
The owner is a billionaire called Mike Jatania (it does not sound very English, doesn’ it?) Mr. Jatania, like Priti Patel, is an Indian whose parents escaped from Idi Amin and landed in the UK. The information quoted below is highly detailed and interesting. This fellow was already worth £850.000.000 in 2007! Great Britain, the land of opportunity!
https://www.nriinternet.com/NRIentrepreneurs/UK/A_Z/J/Mike_Jatania/index.htm
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https://www.politicalbetting.com
The top story there at the moment reckons the extra from It Ain’t Half Hot Mum has been too influenced by the result at Uxbridge.
Too right he has been! A win which was so narrow it could have been influenced by a whole host of factors from the voters having as many as 17 candidates to choose from (a near record), from being a seat on the outermost edge of London so the Tory vote held up better as a protest vote against Khan for the dire crime situation ext. The Tory vote may well have been more ‘sticky’ simply for being the seat of ex PM Boris Johnson.
If either the Green or Lib Dem candidate had not stood then the votes which would have gone to them might well have gone to Labour instead. The by-election even had a Rejoin EU party candidate. Some normally Labour inclined voters might have voted for that party to try and pressurise Labour into being a more pro EU party. Most Labour Party supporters voted Remain and many now want us to to develop a closer relationship with the EU or even rejoin it eventually.
From looking at national polls, the Tories have every right to be worried about them but this abrupt change to their stance on ULEZ (Boris Johnson’s idea after all!) and climate change policy in general is a grotesque overreaction.
There are far more fundamental reasons for Tory unpopularity ie non control of immigration, a poor record on law and order, the cost of living crisis ect.
Labour still got a near 7% swing in their favour which if it were replicated across the country would see that party replacing enough Tory MPs for the Conservative Party to lose office.
Infact, Labour only needs a 3-4% swing to dislodge a sufficient number.
The national mood is better represented by the Lib Dem win at Somerton and Frome and the Labour one at Selby and Ainsty.
As those results indicated, the Tory Party has a battle on its hands on TWO fronts ie not just with regard to the Labour Party. Having a less scientific and careless attitude to climate change and to the environment could well lose some Tory seats to the Lib Dems.
https://theclimate.party/news
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John:
As you imply, the next general election is certainly Labour’s to lose. All the same, I see the Lab lead as *slightly* fragile. It is kept in place purely by the corruption and incompetence of the Con party. Nothing about the Lab lead has anything much to do with Labour itself (leader, ideology, promises); it is all about how bad the Con government is. The Lab lead is therefore a hostage to fortune, and is therefore fragile, which is why Starmer is desperate not to do anything to rock that boat.
I have to agree, though, that nothing Sunak and his crowd is doing so far is likely to dent the Labour lead in the polls. If nothing is pulled out of the hat in the next 10-12 months, Con Party is toast. If, on the other hand, *something/anything* is produced that looks better, even slightly, then Labour’s lead might diminish enough to put things into hung Parliament territory.
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Yes, I think the Labour lead is a bit fragile and more to do with people’s justified exasperation with the present shambolic ‘government’ rather than thinking Labour is a decent, real alternative.
Indeed, polling as outlined recently on this website:
https://www.politicalbetting.com confirms this.
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